


Dead Man's Bones

by Petronille



Category: Hannibal (TV), Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Chesapeake Ripper, Gen, Ghosts, Murder, Someone save Will Graham!, Work In Progress, mediumship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:30:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petronille/pseuds/Petronille
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starts out from Episode 6 of Season 1 of Hannibal and six months after the end of Whitechapel Series 3.  As the hunt for the Chesapeake Ripper heats up again, Jack Crawford adds archivist Caitlin Greer (OC) to the team not for her research skills, but for a different ability altogether. And when Hannibal Lecter discovers the truth, he will do everything he can to protect his secrets. Inspired by the Someone Save Will Graham meme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own _Hannibal,_ but all original characters are mine. **

 

**This is a rewrite of something that I wasn't happy with. Hopefully this time it will turn out better. It will eventually cross over with ITV's _Whitechapel._ This fic begins with Episode 6 of Season 1 and will go from there.**

 

**I've “cast” Felicity Jones as Caitlin Greer. This was originally inspired by the Someone Save Will Graham meme. Caitlin is not a love interest for either Will or Hannibal.**

 

**There is a playlist for this, and I'll post some of the songs now and then.**

Songs from the playlist:  
  
 _Intro_ , Dead Man's Bones (they're a band, and I borrowed their name for the title)

 _Tonight, Tonight,_ Smashing Pumpkins

 _Hotel California,_ The Killers

 _The Mummers' Dance,_ Loreena McKennitt

 _42,_ Coldplay

 _Play On,_ Paloma Faith

 _Dead Hearts,_ Stars

 _The Lighthouse,_ The Hush Sound

 _Cemetaries of London,_ Coldplay

 _The Police and the Private,_ Metric

 _La Petite Mort,_ Coeur de Pirate

 _A Handsome Stranger Called Death,_ FOE

 _Skin,_ Zola Jesus

 _Another Girl's Paradise,_ Tori Amos

 _Blinding,_ Florence + the Machine

 _Games People Play,_ Lissie

 _I'm Not Calling You a Liar_ , Florence + the Machine

 _Burn,_ The Cure

 

The Pale Woman

 

I spoke to the pale and heavy-lidded woman, and said:  
O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your cheek  
Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes afraid lest they speak?  
And the woman answered me: I am pale as the dead,  
For the dead have loved me, and I dream of the dead.  
  
But I see in the eyes of the living, as a living fire,  
The thing that my soul in triumph tells me I have forgot;  
And therefore mine eyelids are heavy, and I raise them not,  
For always I see in the eyes of men the old desire,  
And I fear lest they see that I desire their desire.  
  
\--Arthur Symons

**Dead Man's Bones**

 

**Chapter One**

 

“What does she do again?” Will Graham asked Jack Crawford as they made their way down the quiet hallway.

 

Jack glanced at him with an impassive smile on his face. “In terms of what—her 'super power' or what she does for a living?”

 

“What she does for a living. Why is she here?”

 

“She's building an archive,” Jack explained succinctly. “She's a researcher and an archivist.”

 

“I know about the murder archive,” Will said impatiently. “Another addition to your Evil Minds

Museum, right?”

 

Jack pointedly ignored the surliness in Will's tone, which rankled Will a little bit. ack stopped midstride, turning to Will. “You're familiar with some of the crimes the police in London have been dealing with, haven't you? The copycat murders?”

 

“The Jack the Ripper copycat in 2008?”

 

“ _And_ the Ratliff Highway murder and Thames torso murder copycats from 2011.”

 

“So there are a few killers lacking in originality. What does that have to do with us?” Will demanded.

 

“Hannibal Lecter consulted in the Thames torso copycat case.” Jack continued down the hallway. “He remarked on the murder archive some consultant—a Ripperologist—had started at Scotland Yard. I thought we should have the same thing here at the BAU. So we stole

one of the archivists working with our old files at the National Archives...”

 

“Who has a super power,” Will added ironically.

 

“You're just nervous she might make you obsolete.”

 

“I would be exhilarated if she made me obsolete. Can she handle the things I see? Or will her thinking shut down, too?”

 

“She's not a profiler, Will,” Jack reminded him.

 

“Whatever else she does, then. Is that going to render me obsolete and get me back to the classroom?”

 

“Will, you'll never be obsolete to me.” Jack's tone was gently mocking, though his face was serious. “Let's just say you'll be able to combine notes with her. You'll complement each other, like peas and carrots.”

 

“I'm not Forrest Gump, Jack. So really, stupid is as stupid does.”

 

Jack laughed. “Well, it's nice to know you're on your best behavior today, Will. She'll be thrilled to be working with you.”

 

“She'll be thrilled for both of us, I'm sure.”

 

“You'll like Caitlin. Trust me on this.”

 

“I'll keep an open mind,” Will promised, though he wasn't sure that he could keep it as they stepped into the cool, temperature-controlled room that Jack had commandeered for the archive. It was quiet here, blissfully quiet except for the faint sound of shuffling papers and the creak of someone stepping onto one of those stepstools used in libraries. Jack led Will to the back of the room and behind a shelf. The woman seated on the stepstool had her Ipod earbuds in her ears and was absorbed in reading a file.

 

“Caitlin,” Jack said loudly, and the woman started with a gasp, almost dropping the file. She stood up, pulling the earbuds from her ears and setting the file folder aside.

 

“Jack.” She took her Ipod Touch out of the pocket of her cardigan and turned it off, then disconnected the earbuds from it, dropping them both back into the pocket. “You're early,” she remarked as she surveyed Will casually. And then she seemed to be looking at something beyond him. She blinked twice, a puzzled look crossing her face before she collected herself. “All thr—er, the both of you.”

 

She'd looked beyond him. Had she tried to avoid eye contact just as he was doing?

 

“Will has a class in about half an hour. We got out of our meeting early and decided to come down here. Will Graham, this is Caitlin Greer. She's putting together the BAU murder archive.”

 

She stepped forward, smiling, extending her hand. She was trying to made eye contact now. “It's nice to finally meet you,” she said. “Jack has told me about what you can do...how you use your ability to empathize to profile killers. It's nothing short of amazing.”

 

Will shook her hand briefly. “So you haven't read what Freddie Lounds has written about me, then?”

 

She chuckled. “What Freddie Lounds writes is comparable to the crime journals of the Victorian era. Actually, those are a few steps up.”

 

So Caitlin Greer didn't have a very high opinion of Freddie Lounds, either.

 

“I thought you two would bond over a mutual hatred of Freddie Lounds,” Jack said, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

 

“But is she as bad as Dr. Bloom says she is, Jack?” Caitlin said, her elfin face alight with amusement. “Is she really the worst?”

 

“I think everyone has a different opinion on that,” Jack replied, glancing over at Will. “But Will here thinks she's what you'd call the worst.”

 

Dr. Bloom. How did she know Alana?

 

“Let's give Will a look at this archive,” Jack suggested, gesturing that Caitlin should lead. The young woman's hazel eyes lit up excitedly, and she led both Will and Jack to the shelves that looked like they had been finished.

 

“This is all British murders. All of the files here are copied straight from the murder archive located at the Metropolitan Police headquarters in London. They've been categorized according to how Edward Buchan has it organized there.” She turned to Will. “I just finished Japanese and I'm now on American. Once this is finished, the entire BAU will have access to it for reference. Jack has asked me to stay behind and run it. I'd maintain it and coodinate access to the files. The eventual goal is to get everything electronically archived. So say you're in Florida to help out with a case and you need to take a look at a certain file, you'll be able to access it from the local FBI headquarters.” She cast a weary glance at the rest of the files. “Eventually.”

 

“But we already have archives of our old cases,” Will told her. “Don't those make _your_ archive a little redundant?”

 

“Not really. London Metropolitan Police has all kinds of archives, but this is more of a _specific_ archive. This was designed by a crime historian. So you're not only getting police information, but contemporaneous information from newspapers and other media.” Caitlin reached into the side pocket of her oversized black cardigan and produced a tube of tinted lip balm and reapplied it to her lips.

 

She reminded him of Rachel Weisz's character in _The Mummy._ He could only imagine her coming with them to investigate cases, and when asked by local police what she did, she would say, “I'm an archivist!” with the same amount of pride that Rachel Weisz had told Brendan Fraser that she was a librarian.

 

“It's basically a special collection,” Jack explained to Will. “Meant only for the BAU. It's just another perspective, like what you do is another perspective. Hannibal Lecter saw this when he was in London and mentioned it to Alana Bloom because he was so impressed with it. I'd read about it and decided to make it happen just before we pulled you from the classroom.”

 

“Yeah. What Jack said.” She screwed the cap back onto the tinted lip balm and put it back into her pocket. How much crap did she carry in her pockets? “My office is right here. It's not big and swanky like Jack's, but I have an electric tea kettle if you're ever in the mood for a cuppa.” She clapped her hand over her mouth, suppressing a laugh. “I mean, cup of tea. My dad's British, and sometimes I forget _not_ to say things in the way he would...”

 

Her office was about the size of his, maybe a little smaller, but with more shelf space, and she had made use of all of it, with some books related to her field on some of them and of course Dale Carnegie's _How to Win Friends and Influence People_. But the oddest, of course, were the books beside her desk, the ones on what seemed to be Victorian crime, and one book on William James's investigations into spiritualism. Two on Jack the Ripper, one called _London's Shadows._ Then there were the pictures of family and friends, things everyone else but himself—and Hannibal Lecter—had in their offices. A framed film poster print of  _Way Down East_ hung on one wall, while one of Vincent van Gogh's _Starry Night_ hung on the other. There was a printed picture of Grumpy Cat from the computer pinned into the corkboard by the door.

 

And of course there was the shiny, chrome-colored electric tea kettle.

 

It certainly looked like a librarian's office.

 

At the FBI.

 

In the BAU of all places.

 

“Do you want some tea? I have double bergamot Earl Grey or ginger green tea or...” She stopped all of a sudden, straightening slowly, as though she were listening to someone speaking urgently. Her brow wrinkled, and she bit her lips as though she wanted to say something but dared not to when other people were present.

 

“Caitlin? Everything okay?” Jack asked, touching her on the shoulder gently. She whirled to face Jack, a visible expression of agitation on her face. She looked as though she was about to cry.

 

“Yeah, Jack. I'm fine. I'm just...” Her voice trailed off. She wiped at her eyes, and then Jack's phone ringer went off.

 

“I need to take this,” Jack told Will and Caitlin. “Excuse me.” Jack made his way out of the tiny office, leaving Will alone with Caitlin.

 

This left Will at a loss. He wanted to just leave, to go back to his lecture hall, shuffle some papers around, talk at his students for a few hours, and then be left in peace.

 

But he knew that he couldn't _just leave_. He'd have to face Caitlin Greer after that, and he didn't really want to start off on the wrong foot with her. He picked up the electric tea kettle.

 

“I've got to leave in a few minutes, but if you want some tea I can at least heat the water for you. We'll have to have that cuppa some other time.”

 

Will glanced at Caitlin, who seemed to be staring not at him, but _beyond_ him, and she tossed her head, blinked, and then looked at him apologetically.

 

“I'm sorry,” she said softly. “I don't know what came over me. Sometimes I...Well, you probably have moments like that, too.”

 

“Sometimes,” he admitted with a grimace. He went into the nearest kitchen for some water, then returned to Caitlin's office, where she now sat in her desk chair, her face pale.

 

“Here,” she said, getting up after watching him struggle with turning on the electric tea kettle. “I'll do it. You don't need to. I'll show you how another time.”

 

“You're okay, though?”  
  
“I'm fine.”

 

“You're sure?”

 

“Positive.” She stepped away from him, crossing her arms across her chest. She regarded him oddly, tilting her head to the side, almost seeming to deliberate as to whether or not she should say something more to him.

 

“An albatross,” she said. “You've got an albatross around your neck, like the ancient mariner.”

 

“Excuse me?” Will said, taken aback.

 

“You know—an albatross. In _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,_ the mariner killed the albatross, which his crew believed to be a sign of good luck, and the rest of the crew was so pissed at him that they made him wear it around his neck.” She toyed with the dainty amber pendant around her neck.

 

“I know about _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ ,” Will said, retreating back into the defenses he had built for himself once again. “But why are you telling me I've got an albatross around my neck?”

 

She sighed, pressing the heels of her hands to her temples. “It's guilt. You're carrying a lot of guilt with you.”

 

“Guilt?” Will demanded, the edge returning to his voice. “And how'd you figure that out? Are you trying out the great profiling skills you got from being crime historian on me just to see how they work?”

 

“ _No._ Will, that's not it at all.”

 

“Well, how did you come to that conclusion, then?”

 

She inhaled deeply, as though she was steeling herself. “Because he's standing right behind you.”

 

“But there's no one...” he began, checking over his shoulder just to make sure he was right. “There's no one there.”

 

He felt a sudden chill breeze, as though someone had walked right past him. But there was no one there.

 

And then, as though they had been pushed, four or five of Caitlin's books toppled off of the bookshelf and onto the floor. Caitlin gasped. “Oh, fuck, Will, you just pissed him off. You might...Mary! _Mary! That's enough!_ You don't need to repeat it...I think he gets it.”

 

“You think _who_ gets it?” Will queried.

 

“Not _you!_ Mary, knock it off! Just _stop!”_ Caitlin pointed at something beside the bookshelf, something Will couldn't see, though the books shuffled across the floor on their own as though some unseen person had kicked at them.

 

He felt cold. All of the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end.

 

“Did I just see that? Did those books just move on their own?”

 

“Not on their own.” Caitlin sighed, closing her eyes. “The ghost of Garrett Jacob Hobbs—the albatross around your neck—is the one who moved them.”

 

**All reviews, favorites, and follows will, as always, be greatly appreciated!**

 


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Hannibal, but all original characters are mine.

This will eventually cross over with ITV's Whitechapel. This fic begins with Episode 5 of Season 1 and will go from there.

I've "cast" Felicity Jones as Caitlin Greer. This was originally inspired by the Someone Save Will Graham meme. Caitlin is not a love interest for either Will or Hannibal. But for Joe Chandler of Whitechapel? Oh, yes!

And does anyone have an idea of the timeline of the first season of the series? It looks like it starts in autumn 2012 and ends with Will's capture and containment in late winter or early spring of 2013. Is anyone else getting this impression as well?

Also, updates on this and other stories may be a little sporadic as I'm working on my own stuff right now. If anyone would like to know more, please let me know!

Dead Man's Bones

Chapter Two

Caitlin had always been good at faking being normal, at hiding what she called her "thing." But it came easily when her parents and siblings were so supportive of her, when it was known to have been a result of the accident.

Somehow she didn't think it came so easily with Will Graham.

She had almost slipped when she had seen the third man there, but once she had really gotten a look at him, at his eyes, she had realized that Garrett Jacob Hobbs wasn't living.

He was a ghost.

He had stood there, snickering at the things Will Graham was saying, mimicking Will's movements.

And then he had turned to Caitlin as they had stood in her office.

You can see me.

You know you glow like a fucking light show?

Ask him how he killed me. Ask him.

Of course that was when Mary Jane Kelly had wandered into the room through the wall.

What in the hell are you doing here? Get out! Mary had railed, straightening to what had been in full height in lifetime, clenching her fists.

Who are you to tell me that? Hobbs folded his arms across his chest, a corner of his lip curling up, his brows raised.

Does it matter who I am? When I tell you to get out, it means to get out. Now do it, before I put my fist in your eye and my boot up your ass!

Will Graham's jaw went slack when the books fell off of the shelf as Hobbs has turned to leave.

Will hadn't appreciated her assessment of him, either.

"You're an archivist," he told her levelly. "Not a profiler, not a psychiatrist. You don't have the expertise to psychoanalyze me. And all this stuff about ghosts...where the hell is this coming from?"

Mary Jane let out a laugh. Ah, so he thinks he's a bright one, doesn't he?

Caitlin shot her a warning glance, and the ghost sighed wearily and passed beside Will Graham, making him shiver again.

"Was that a ghost?"

"Not your ghost."

"So you have a ghost?" He watched as she picked out some double bergamot Earl Grey tea and placed the bag into her mug.

"In a manner of speaking."

"So who's your ghost?"

"Mary Jane Kelly. The fifth Jack the Ripper victim."

"So how did that happen?"

"I was in London, and some kids were messing around with a Ouija board in front of a warehouse." Caitlin gestured for Will to sit in her desk chair. "My dad is British—an academic...both my parents are—so while he and my mom were off researching at whatever university during the summer my brother and sister and I would stay with my gran in London. I studied abroad at the university one fall and was coming home from the pub with some friends. The kids saw us and took off, but Mary was still there, and I let her follow me home. She was still in her death state. It took six months for her to get out of it."

"So she's followed you like a lost puppy dog ever since?"

"Mary Jane keeps the other ghosts away so I can sleep at night. She acts as a kind of gatekeeper."

"And what do you do for her?" Will asked.

"I've promised to help her find her killer."

Will Graham stared at Caitlin incredulously, his brows raising and a laugh ready to erupt from his mouth. "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard."

"Says the man who can empathize with serial killers." Caitlin poured some tea into her mug.

"How did you deal with it? Seeing her like how the crime scene pictures from the Miller's Court room show?" Will said, pushing the chair back from her desk because it was so high, leaning forward.

Caitlin shrugged. "I just did. It's not like it was her fault. Anyhow, I take something so I can sleep at night. And I have a good therapist."

"Alana Bloom?"

She almost spat out her tea. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." He stood up. "Anyway, I hate to cut this short, but I have a class to teach. It was nice meeting you."

"Likewise," she said, smiling as she watched him leave. And Mary Jane watched him leave, too.

"You met Will?" Alana said as though she were trying to broach the subject carefully. "What did you think about him?"

Caitlin sipped at her coffee as they walked across the Quantico campus. "He's reserved...in a real standoffish way. In an, 'I don't want to talk to anyone—ever' way."

"Did you get along with him okay?"

"He didn't seem to be too receptive of the work I was doing, but then he's a profiler. He's not going to care about the history behind certain things or which adhesive works the best to fix a book binding. In the end, I'm just a librarian to him."

"A librarian who can communicate with the victims from beyond the grave," Alana amended, a smile brightening her face.

"So you believe in psychic phenomena?" Caitlin asked her incredulously, her brows knitting.

"I don't discount it. We only know a little bit about the brain and what it's capable of," Alana reminded Caitlin. "Near-death experiences resulting from lack of oxygen and sudden resuscitation can sometimes have odd effects on the brain, almost like it's been rewired on its own. I think this is what happened with you."

"Have you discussed it with anyone else?"

"Not everyone shares my opinions, so that's why I don't discuss it or you with anyone else. You only wanted Jack and me to know, and that's how it's going to be."

"Will Graham knows now, too."

"Will can keep a secret."

"Can he?"

"You told him about Mary Kelly?"

Caitlin snorted. "There was no choice. Garrett Jacob Hobbs was all up in his shit. Mary Jane got pissed and intervened. Hobbs headed off...for now."

"He mentioned you quoted The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

"Not so much quoted as referenced."

"Will isn't stupid, Caitlin."

"Neither am I. But he tends to treat people like they're stupid. But he doesn't like being treated like he's stupid." Caitlin's lips turned down as she sipped at her caramel macchiato once more.

"What does your ghost say?"

"Mary Jane."

"Okay. What does Mary Jane say?"

"She likes him. She called him a bright one."

"What does she think of me?" Alana said curiously.

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"She's grimacing at you right now. But for the most part, she likes you. You're a fighter, a tough one."

"Jack wants you to come with me to Baltimore. Soon."

"Why?"

"To talk to Abigail Hobbs. He's stumped. He thinks you can get something."

"Like talking to ghosties?"

"Yeah, that." Alana stopped walking. "Hannibal Lecter says he wants to help you with your Ripper publication. He wants to take a look at the archive and whatever resources you might have and whatever Edward Buchan gave you."

"It's just a historical book, Alana. I'm not pushing a certain suspect."

"I know you're not. We'll make a day of it. We'll see Abigail and then Hannibal will cook us dinner. His library is amazing, Caitlin; you'll be in there for days."

Oh, this. Alana had been pushing Caitlin to go to Hannibal Lecter for his expertise on forensic psychiatry. And of course there was the archive and his curiosity about it.

"If he wants to see the archive, that's great. Bring him in. I'd also love to see his library sometime." Caitlin threw her empty Starbucks cup into the trash.

"And let him have you for dinner?" Alana prompted. Caitlin couldn't help but laugh at this.

"And let him have me for dinner," Caitlin replied, smiling.

Late autumns and winters in Virginia were much milder than the Chicago ones Caitlin had grown up with and almost gloomier than the London ones she had become accustomed to and loved best. But it was still nice to have some flexibility with her wardrobe in the winter here just as she did in London. And to top it off, there would be no lake effect snow. And, at least right now, she could still sit outside on the Quantico campus with her lunch and a book or her laptop.

Today she decided on her laptop. Yesterday's encounter with Will Graham's ghost shadow had unnerved her enough that she still needed some distraction. She hadn't checked her Facebook since yesterday, instead vegging out to two episodes of The Tudors on Netflix Instant and drinking half a bottle of Fish Eye pinot grigio before popping her Buspar and going to bed.

There were the normal updates from college friends, the pictures D.S. Miles posted of his children, the pictures from D.C. Reilly's latest medieval fair, her brother Roane's and his wife Haley's pictures from a weekend dinner, a link to an article her mother had written, and something her father had posted about the Wars of the Roses, and of course something from Edward Buchan's author profile.

But not what she had been looking for.

She checked D.I. Joe Chandler's profile, even though she felt a bit guilty about it.

He still showed as single.

She didn't know whether or not to be relieved or to feel sorry for him.

There had been some attraction there while she had been in London those six months getting to know Buchan's archive inside and out. It had been so easy to get along with him; while his brain didn't exactly work like hers, they both liked some kind of order and organization, some kind of sense of control over their surroundings. Caitlin had channeled that into a career and into maintaining that sense of balance that Mary Jane helped her with, but Joe's issues were so much bigger than hers.

He was OCD. He had the diagnosis, everything. It was just difficult for him to get the help he needed, to find a counselor he liked.

"Don't feel bad," she had told him when he had confided this to her. "I can talk to ghosts."

He had pushed his chicken curry around on the carry-out container, the corners of his lips beginning to turn up into a smile, yet his cheeks colored a bit, and he purposely averted his eyes from hers. "That's a good joke, Caitlin, but there's no need to change the subject."

"No. Really. Edward didn't tell you?" Buchan had been the first person she had confided this to. He had been absolutely excited when she had told him that Mary Jane Kelly was looking at the dusorganization of the archive in disgust.

"So you're not joking?"

"I'm being serious." She took a sip of tea after that last bite of curry. "Why do you think Jack Crawford of the FBI has me over here learning the ins and outs of Edward Buchan's archive—for funsies?"

"I should have known that Jack Crawford would think like that," Joe murmured. "He's killing two birds with one stone, isn't he? An archivist and a psychic detective."

"I just talk to ghosts, I can't read minds," Caitlin reminded Joe, throwing her wadded-up napkin at him.

"So how long have you been able to talk to ghosts?"

"Since I was ten."

"Was it something you were born with, or..."

"When I was ten I almost died."

She didn't want to elaborate further, and he didn't seem to want to ask. "It wasn't because of some creeper or something. It was just a horrible accident, but I'm still lucky to have survived and to be here talking to you now."

"Or maybe I'm lucky that you're here talking to me now." His voice grew soft, and Caitlin felt her nerves grow sharp with anxiety.

The last thing she wanted was to start a fling with a colleague. Not just any colleague, but a very handsome, very sweet, very intelligent, very available colleague at that.

He seemed to have sensed her dread; he started, reaching into his pocket for his Tiger Balm. "I don't mean it in the way you're thinking," he assured her, unscrewing the cap and dipping his fingers into the small pot. He rubbed the balm onto his temples, closing his eyes momentarily. "I haven't been able to have moments like this in about a year. Moments of clarity, I guess you could call them, from just talking to someone about mundane, everyday things. So I suppose I should thank you for choosing to stay late tonight."

"And choosing to take you up on buying me dinner?"

He laughed. "Yes, that, too."

And that was how it had started, as an easy friendship.

Two months before she had left for the States, it had turned into something more.

She hadn't wanted to leave London. She'd just wanted to tell the FBI to kiss her good-bye, that she was going to live with her gran and find something in England. Because she was in love.

She'd called Jack Crawford and her boss at the National Archive to tell her as much.

But then Jack had been like the Pied Piper, cajolng her into coming back for a higher amount of money than they had first bargained. And for her own office space instead of whatever they were going to give her.

And all the Nutella she could eat.

And action.

Joe had told her to take it and run. It had seemed a better opportunity than working on a dingy old archive all day, waiting for him to come home every night.

There'd been no way they could do the long-distance thing, not with their jobs.

So reluctantly they parted ways.

And it was on the plane ride home that she'd realized she'd loved him.

She wondered if she ought to message him about Hannibal Lecter.

"Caitlin."

Jack Crawford had come out to the outside common area looking for her.

"Hi Jack," she said, finishing the last of her Lean Cuisine. Seeing his furrowed brow, she asked him, "What's up?"

"How do you feel about a road trip?" he asked her, watching as she threw away the last of her lunch and reached into her purse for some hand sanitizer.

"I'd like to know where we're going first."

"Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. You wanted action, you're getting action."


End file.
